Mickey Spillane - The Girl Hunters

"What will you do with him?"

Rickerby's grin was damn near inhuman. It was a look I had seen before on other people and never would have expected from him. "A quick kill would be too good, Mike," he told me slowly. "But the law--this supposedly just, merciful provision--this is the most cruel of all. It lets you rot in a death cell for months and deteriorate slowly until you're only an accumulation of living cells with the consciousness of knowing you are about to die; then the creature is tied in a chair and jazzed with a hot shot that wipes him from the face of the earth with one big jolt and that's that."

"Pleasant thought," I said.

"Isn't it, though? Too many people think the sudden kill is the perfect answer for revenge. Ah, no, my friend. It's the waiting. It's the knowing beforehand that even the merciful provisions of a public trial will only result in what you already know--more waiting and further contemplation of that little room where you spend your last days with death in an oaken chair only a few yards away. And do you know what? I'll see that killer every day. I'll savor his anguish like a fine drink and be there as a witness When he burns and he'll see me and know why I'm there and when he's finished I'll be satisfied."

"You got a mean streak a yard wide, Rickerby."

"But it doesn't quite match yours, Mike."

"The hell it doesn't."

"No--you'll see what I mean some day. You'll see yourself express the violence of thought and action in a way I'd never do. True violence isn't in the deed itself. It's the contemplation and enjoyment of the deed."

"Come off it."

Rickerby smiled, the intensity of hatred he was filled with a moment ago seeping out slowly. If it had been me I would have been shaking like a leaf, but now he casually reached out for the can of beer, sipped at it coolly and put it down.

"I have some information you requested," he told me.

While I waited I walked behind the desk, sat down and pulled open the lower drawer. The shoulder holster was still supple although it had lain there seven years. I took off my jacket, slipped it on and put my coat back.

Art said, "I--managed to find out about Gerald Erlich."

I could feel the pulse in my arm throb against the arm of the chair. I still waited.

"Erlich is dead, my friend."

I let my breath out slowly, hoping my face didn't show how I felt.

"He died five years ago and his body was positively identified."

Five years ago! But he was supposed to have died during the war!

"He was found shot in the head in the Eastern Zone of Germany. After the war he had been fingerprinted and classified along with other prisoners of note so there was no doubt as to his identity." Art stopped a moment, studied me, then went on. "Apparently this man was trying to make the Western Zone. On his person were papers and articles that showed he had come out of Russia, there were signs that he had been under severe punishment and if you want to speculate, you might say that he had escaped from a prison and was tracked down just yards from freedom."

"That's pretty good information to come out of the Eastern Zone," I said.

Rickerby nodded sagely. "We have people there. They purposely investigate things of this sort. There's nothing coincidental about it."

"There's more."

His eyes were funny. They had an oblique quality as if they watched something totally foreign, something they had never realized could exist before. They watched and waited. Then he said, "Erlich had an importance we really didn't understand until lately. He was the nucleus of an organization of espionage agents the like of which had never been developed before and whose importance remained intact even after the downfall of the Third Reich. It was an organization so ruthless that its members, in order to pursue their own ends, would go with any government they thought capable of winning a present global conflict and apparently they selected the Reds. To oppose them and us meant fighting two battles, so it would be better to support one until the other lost, then undermine that one until it could take over."

"Crazy," I said.

"Is it?"

"They can't win."

"But they can certainly bring on some incredible devastation."

"Then why kill Erlich?"

Art sat back and folded his hands together in a familiar way. "Simple. He defected. He wanted out. Let's say he got smart in his late years and realized the personal futility of pushing this thing any further. He wanted to spend a few years in peace."

It was reasonable in a way. I nodded.

"But he had to die," Art continued. "There was one thing he knew that was known only to the next in line in the chain of command, the ones taking over the organization."

"Like what?"

"He knew every agent in the group. He could bust the whole shebang up if he spilled his guts to the West and the idea of world conquest by the Reds or the others would go smack down the drain."

"This you know?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No. Let's say I'm sure of it, but I don't know it. At this point I really don't care. It's the rest of the story I pulled out of the hat I'm interested in." And now his eyes cocked themselves up at me again. "He was tracked down and killed by one known to the Reds as their chief assassin agent Gorlin, but to us as The Dragon."

If he could have had his hand on my chest, or even have touched me anywhere he would have known what was happening. My guts would knot and chum and my head was filled with a wild flushing sensation of blood almost bursting through their walls. But he didn't touch me and he couldn't tell from my face so his eyes looked at me even a little more obliquely expecting even the slightest reaction and getting none. None at all.

"You're a cold-blooded bastard," he nearly whispered.

"You said that before."

He blinked owlishly behind his glasses and stood up, his coat over his arm. "You know where to reach me."

"I know."

"Do you need anything?"

"Not now. Thanks for the ticket."

"No trouble. Will you promise me something?"

"Sure."

"Just don't use that gun on The Dragon."

"I won't kill him, Art."

"No. Leave that for me. Don't spoil my pleasure or yours either."

He went out, closing the door softly behind him. I pulled the center desk drawer out, got the extra clip and the box of shells from the niche and closed the drawer. The package I had mailed to myself was on the table by the door where Nat always put my packages when he had to take them from the mailman. I ripped it open, took out the .45, checked the action and dropped it in the holster.

Now it was just like old times.

I turned off the light in my office and went outside. I was reaching for the door when the phone on Velda's desk went off with a sudden jangling that shook me for a second before I could pick it up.

Her voice was rich and vibrant when she said hello and I wanted her right there with me right then. She knew it too, and her laugh rippled across the miles. She said, "Are you going to be busy tonight, Mike?"

Time was something I had too little of, but I had too little of her too. "Well--why?"

"Because I'm coming into your big city."

"Isn't it kind of late?"

"No. I have to be there at 10 P.M. to see a friend of yours and since I see no sense of wasting the evening I thought that whatever you have to do you can do it with me. Or can you?"

"It takes two to dance, baby."

She laughed again. "I didn't mean it that way."

"Sure, come on in. If I said not to I'd be lying. Who's my friend you have a date with?"

"An old friend and new enemy. Captain Chambers."

"What is this?"

"I don't know. He called and asked if I could come in. It would simplify things since his going out of his jurisdiction requires a lot of work."